By Sue Bolton
MELBOURNE — A meeting of 1000 delegates on December 3 voted to continue the campaign against the Kennett government's WorkCover cuts, regardless of whether the legislation is passed. Following the meeting, delegates joined with striking workers from the metal industry to form a 3000-4000 strong demonstration outside Parliament House.
The size of the delegates' meeting indicates that there is still huge support for a campaign, despite many union leaders appearing to have dropped it.
The legislation abolishes workers' rights to sue their employer for negligence causing injury. The government's amendments also severely reduce the number of injured workers eligible for a lump sum payment and drastically cut weekly benefits to injured workers.
The legislation was passed by the lower house on December 4, while protesters were being thrown out of the "public" gallery.
In moving the Victorian Trades Hall Council resolution, Martin Kingham, state secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union Construction Division, noted: "Previously, when the Kennett government eroded workers' compensation and when the previous Labor government eroded workers' compensation, we [the union movement] campaigned against the legislation until it passed through parliament, and then the campaign stopped.
"This is the first time that we are having a meeting that's saying we are going to continue the campaign in a tactical way, to put benefits in the pockets of injured workers."
The resolution noted that the campaign had re-established workers' compensation and the plight of injured workers as a political and industrial issue.
It called for a "vigorous WorkCover campaign, including a focus on health and safety, in 1998" and said that "the campaign would be waged at both a political and industrial level".
The resolution also called for an "industrial campaign to ensure that employers meet their obligations to injured workers. We are determined to conduct industry and workplace campaigns to ensure that adequate arrangements are in place to compensate for the losses caused by this legislation."
The meeting endorsed an industrial campaign which would focus on improving the accident make-up pay in awards.
The campaign would aim to force employers to take out extra insurance to cover top-up weekly payments to at least the level of the current WorkCover legislation; a supplementary impairment table for those with permanent disabilities and those with less than 10% whole person impairment; improved death benefits and total loss benefits; and improved journey accident insurance.
The CFMEU estimates that these demands will cost employers in the construction industry an extra $2080 per employee per year. It will take a very solid fight to make the bosses pay for what Kennett has taken from injured workers.
Kingham said that the CFMEU has the strength to fight, but "We don't want to fight the battle on our own. It's got to be an industry-wide campaign and it's got to be coordinated within and across industries."
The official motion was amended by CFMEU delegate Mick Bull to call for further delegates' meetings, industrial action to defend any union that is sued for taking industrial action in the campaign and a 24-hour vigil outside Parliament House before the legislation goes through.
Bull said, "It is particularly important to commit the union movement to taking industrial action to support any union that is threatened under the federal Workplace Relations Act. Already, the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union are being threatened with being sued for taking industrial action this week."
ETU members working in the railways went ahead with their 24-hour strike on December 2 despite threats by the government to sue the union and the members.
The AMWU also went ahead with its strike on December 3 (to coincide with the delegates' meeting) despite the metal trades employers threatening to sue. All divisions of the AMWU joined the strike.
However, many tram and bus drivers and conductors were furious when leaders of the Public Transport Union called off their strike on December 3.
The initiative for the strike had come from the rank and file. When the Industrial Relations Commission ordered the PTU not to take industrial action for 14 days or face being sued, the PTU Tram and Bus Division's conservative leaders called off the strike.
A conductor from Preston depot told Green Left Weekly that the PTU leaders "had used the court injunction against industrial action by the union as a cop-out.
"We'll all be affected by the cuts to WorkCover. If ETU members employed by the Public Transport Corporation can take industrial action, we can too."
Since the VTHC delegates' meeting, the CFMEU state management committee has endorsed the proposal for a vigil at Parliament House. It will start at 10am on December 9 and continue until December 11, when the legislation is due to pass the upper house.
"Having another all-union focus on the Kennett government is important", says Bull. "Not all unions have the industrial muscle to force the bosses to make up for what Kennett is cutting. There really should be another statewide stoppage involving all unions but, failing that, the vigil will be important in maintaining focus on the campaign.
"Already, the campaign has resulted in shifting public opinion to a situation where 80% of Victorians oppose Kennett's attacks on WorkCover.
"The crucial question will be to ensure that the campaign doesn't get swallowed up in a campaign to build support for the ALP. If we're to win this campaign we need to rely on our own strength and not rely on electing a party which has cut workers' compensation itself, when last in government."